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July 7, 2013

Filthy Music Review - 'Ad patres: Scorn Aesthetics'

Ad Patres – Scorn Aesthetics (2013)

Kaotoxin
Records

Review by Jude
Felton

For whatever
reason, time usually being the main one, I sometimes let reviews slip through
the cracks. By that I mean that I fully intended to write one, have listened to
the album and whatnot, yet I didn’t get around to it as soon as I would have
liked. That is the case with Ad Patres ferocious album, Scorn Aesthetics, which
was released by Kaotoxin Records back in February. This is a further confounded
by the fact that the French label has yet to release anything that I have not
liked. Ah well, better late than never, right?

Onto the case
in hand and that being Scorn Aesthetics which is, aside from being a great name
for an album, a monstrous slab of death metal. The band itself was created by
Alsvid, who you may know from French black metal exponents, Seth, and Scorn Aesthetics
is their debut album, after having release an EP and split album. And it’s a
beast.

What Ad
Patres have delivered on this album is an almost claustrophobic sense of being
smothered by the sheer weight of the music. A short intro, entitled … launches
straight into The Lock, and its deep throaty death metal vocals, tight riffing
and blistering drumming all the way into the darkness.

The pace of
Scorn Aesthetics is a fairly brisk one, with the entire album running to about
30 minutes or so, but that’s not to say that Ad Patres don’t mix it up. Sure,
the drumming thunders along, most of the time, but such is the musicianship and
songwriting that nothing sounds repetitive. By the time you reach the punch of
In Vivo you’ll have been given a good solid beating, and you’ll still have
three more tracks to go!

Fortunately,
the production here is pretty damned good, so even though the music smothers
you, throws you in a sack and beats you around the head, everything sounds
great in the mix. No one element overpowers another, with each musician being
given ample room to flex their muscles, allowing the songs to shine.

Scorn Aesthetics
delivers the more brutal and, dare I say, old school approach to intensely fast
technical death metal. However, aside from the more intricate parts there is
plenty of room for good old-fashioned heavy-as-hell riffing. It’s all very good
and definitely needs to be played loud!

If you haven’t
had the chance to check out Ad Patres yet, this is the perfect opportunity as
this is a killer album. Fast, heavy as fuck and totally unforgiving.